Special report:

Saudi Arabia

The double-act wears thin

Suddenly, it's getting harder to play both sides

WHEN Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Afghanistan on September 25th, the decision was hailed as the final step in the international isolation of the Taliban regime. But the most remarkable feature of the action is how slow the Saudis were to take it. The Saudi government sees Osama bin Laden as a threat to its very existence. Yet Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries to recognise his hosts, the Taliban, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Even after Mr bin Laden took refuge with them in 1996, Saudi Arabia is said to have helped pay for their drive to take full control of the country. And, now that America is planning to hunt Mr bin Laden down, Saudi Arabia seems reluctant to join the chase.

This reluctance stems in large part from Mr bin Laden's popularity among ordinary Saudis. The royal family's authoritarian rule makes public opinion hard to gauge, but stories abound of his admirers sending one another congratulatory text messages on their mobile telephones after the attacks of September 11th. A more common reaction, according to one Saudi, was suspicion that America was trying to frame Mr bin Laden because of his opposition to American involvement in the Middle East. At any rate, many Saudis sympathise with his denunciation of America's “indifference” to the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and Iraqis under United Nations sanctions.

Not exactly comfortableReuters

Saudi officials, conscious of the growing criticism of America, have long tried to play down the two countries' ties. They have pursued, for example, a rapprochement with Iran. Several years ago, the government moved most American forces in the kingdom to a remote desert air base. Earlier in the year, with the Palestinian uprising in full swing and popular consternation at its height, the Saudi regime began to put pressure on America to stop using aircraft based in its country for attacks on Iraq. No wonder, then, that the Saudi government reacted with horror and confusion when American officials declared that they were using a Saudi air base as headquarters for any retaliation against Afghanistan.

Criticism of the kingdom's ties to America is not the only theme of Mr bin Laden's that strikes a chord with the Saudi public. He also fulminates against the godlessness of the royal family, some of whom do indeed seem more comfortable at parties in Geneva than on pilgrimage to Mecca. In the past, the family's long-standing alliance with the puritanical Wahhabi sect helped to shield it from such censure. But, whenever Islamist protest swelled, the regime's standard response was to co-opt its critics by burnishing its Islamic credentials. The net result is that the clergy—many of them reactionary by western standards—now wield enormous sway over everything from school curriculums to municipal building codes. And, in foreign policy, Saudi Arabia has long tried to cast itself as the global sponsor of conservative Islam. Hence its support for movements such as the Taliban.

That policy has now come home to roost. As many as 25,000 Saudis have, like Mr bin Laden, travelled abroad to fight for the Muslim cause in places such as Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, according to Saad al-Faqih, the leader of a London-based opposition group. Many of those have since returned home to raise money or recruit new volunteers for militant groups. Several of the hijackers involved in the attack on America were Saudis, even if some used false identities. Although violent fanaticism is just what the government was hoping to avoid, it seems to arise fairly directly from the sort of uncompromising religiosity the government has encouraged. As one Kuwaiti anxiously puts it, “The Saudis have been playing both sides for a long time, but now they have to make up their minds.”

In fact, as always, the Saudi regime is likely to dwell on its response for some time. It has faced down unrest before. Unlike the last serious bout of Islamist agitation, in the mid-1990s, the present surge features little open criticism of the government. Mr al-Faqih admits he does not expect public protests in the event of an American attack on Afghanistan. But even if opposition to the regime is shallower this time, it is also more widespread and diffuse, and so harder to combat.

One Saudi who has been doing the rounds of locals' evening get-togethers says the tenor of ordinary conversation has become much more critical of the government. The Saudi authorities will find it extremely hard to stop their citizens giving money to Islamic charities that turn out to be fronts for extremists. Recruitment and fund-raising can take place during a visit to the mosque, or over a quiet cup of tea at home. And no one knows how long the anti-terrorist campaign will last, or how much resentment it will foster.